Rudy

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for The Rainmaker Episode 7.]

Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan) had to go to court for a different reason than usual in Friday’s (September 26) new episode of The Rainmaker. Rather than heading in for another hearing to prosecute the Donny Ray Black civil case, Rudy came in as a defendant … in a criminal proceeding.

Cliff (Fionn Ó Loingsigh), the abusive husband of Kelly Riker (Robyn Cara), tracked her down to Dot’s (Karen Bryson) house and attacked her in the bathroom. After she ran out into the living room, Cliff was shot and killed, and Rudy took the blame for it to protect Kelly. Bruiser (Lana Parrilla) rushed to Rudy’s bond defense and even put up his bail money and, after discovering the truth of the encounter by visiting the scene, negotiated an end to the case, leaving Rudy free of charges and Kelly bound for a new life all her own.

The culmination of Rudy’s relationship with Kelly hits quite differently in this version, since, unlike the book and movie iterations, there’s not a romantic element for the two — a decision that came at the very last minute.

Series creator Michael Seitzman remembered, “It was a big discussion on set and on the page about what that moment was going to be like when they lay down in bed together… I had a thought overnight, the night before we shot, that it felt wrong to me, that it felt like the reward for all of this shouldn’t be sexual, and it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be.”

“It was originally going to be a love scene, that scene when she says, ‘Can you hold me?’ and then they lay down in bed together,” Seitzman continued. “Then I killed it the night before we were shooting, and thought it just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like the right emotion coming out of this episode… I didn’t want the audience to be turned on by the moment or to be confused by the moment.” Another reason it was changed? “I really wanted Rudy to be somebody who really meant it when he said, ‘Of course, I’ll hold you.’ … Anything more would have felt it just would have felt wrong to me.”

The stars involved in the scene completely agreed. For Milo Callaghan, it was also a character issue for Rudy. “It was a conversation we had with Robyn Cara, who plays Kelly, is fantastic and so beautifully vulnerable and sweet in the show. And I think in our version of this, in our take on this story, there’s a curiosity that he feels — that you see in the book and in the film — but something curbs the follow-through on that because this is, again, somebody who’s really vulnerable in an abusive relationship, and he has a value system that doesn’t allow him to take advantage of that, which I think is one of the things that drives the plot, in lots of ways, is that Rudy Baylor refuses to take advantage of the vulnerable.”

Robyn Cara also thought it was the right move for her character’s mindset, explaining, “I like the way it kind of played out in this version because she’s just been through such a horrible thing… She killed her husband, so her brain must just be everywhere. She’s just gone through a huge amount of trauma. So I think going through for a more platonic ending with the characters with them, it feels like the right way to go for us in this version.”

As for the changes to the criminal proceeding itself — in the book and film, it’s Kelly who’s arrested after Rudy killed Cliff in self-defense — Seitzman said those tweaks were meant to keep fans on their toes.

“I really liked the storyline a lot because it lives outside of the spine of the story, but it’s still a part of Rudy’s growth arc, his maturation and matriculation throughout the season,” he explained. “I wanted to upend the audience’s expectations a little bit about what was going to happen. If they were familiar with the book or they were familiar with the movie, they kind of knew how this played out in those original versions. I wanted a different version, and I wanted one that allowed Bruiser to be a very smart investigator and a smart litigator and to figure it out. I also felt that we should play on Rudy’s sometimes view of the truth as something that might be malleable… This is another example of Rudy being dishonest because he thinks he’s doing the right thing.”

The Rainmaker, Fridays, 10/9c, USA Network

If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233.